Saturday, 10 February 2018

John Calvin at Stake: the Role of the Genevan Reformer in the Burning of Michael Servetus, Part 2

This is Part 2 of a paper I wrote last year on John Calvin's role in the burning of Michael Servetus at the stake. Part 1 may be found here.

[My apologies on the footnotes-their numbering starts again at the
beginning of each installment of the article. Also, they frequently
have shortened references to works previously cited in prior
installments, or an "ibid" to refer to the fact that I am continuing to
reference the last work I just cited. I know this is inconvenient, but I
don't particularly want to go through and redo all this for convenience
of reading in blog posts...hopefully its not too annoying this way.]

When Servetus showed up in Geneva shortly
after his escape, everyone took it seriously.But why Geneva?Servetus knew
Calvin was there and knew the material evidence for his conviction in Lyons had
ultimately come from Calvin.[1]Servetus’s claim that “he was travelling to
Naples and stopped in the city for one night, hoping to remain unrecognized” seems
suspect, as he attended church for Calvin’s Sunday sermon.[2]Calvin thought Servetus “intended perhaps
passing through this city”, but no one knew.[3]Someone recognized him after the service and alerted
Calvin, who then reported Servetus to the civil authorities and initiated
charges of heresy against him.[4]The town council imprisoned Servetus and a
trial lasting from mid-August to late October began.

In the sixteenth-century, civil and church
authorities agreed that heresy was dangerous. But it threatened more than souls
– civic order and public morality were at stake.[5]Twenty-first century lenses view religion as
a private, personal matter.But in
early-modern thinking, heresy constituted not merely irregular personal piety
or unusual religious opinion but potentially destabilizing and destructive
ideas for society as a whole. “Heresy
was not simply a matter of doctrinal error; it carried the stigma of moral
corruption.It poisoned the community….”[6]

In continuity with medieval Christendom,
Calvin saw “an indissoluble link between religious faith and public
order.”Thus, “civil government does
indeed have ‘spiritual’ responsibilities.”[7]The civil authority’s sphere was to guard
freedom for and outward practice of orderly religion; the church's sphere was
to ensure and defend true piety and pure doctrine.[8]“Both magistrates and ministers were agents
and servants of…God, committed to the same cause, differing only in their
spheres and means of action.”Their
“responsibilities were complementary rather than competitive.”[9]

Servetus was tried in civil
court, consisting of city councillors.The
Genevan council, “perennially jealous of its authority,”[10] had previously banished
Calvin for his insistence on the church’s authority to excommunicate.A foreigner, Calvin did not hold Genevan
citizenship, and was “excluded from the dispensation of civil and criminal
justice.”[11]Calvin’s role in the trial was not one of
judge therefore, but of expert theological witness for the prosecution.[12]Having refuted him for years, Calvin knew
Servetus’s theology better than anyone.When
Geneva requested evidence from the earlier trial in France, the French
authorities demanded Servetus be returned to them for execution.The council put the choice to Servetus, who preferred
to try his chances in Geneva.[13]

After years of attempting to “gain him for
our Savior,”[14]
Calvin came to “hope…the sentence of death will…be passed.”[15]In a letter toHeinrich Bullinger
(1504-1575), Beza states that Calvin “pleaded the cause of the Church against [Servetus]
in the Council,” yet Servetus “continued in his impiety.”The outcome was uncertain:“What will come of it I know not. Let us pray the Lord to purge His Church of
these monsters.”[16]Beza was a colleague of Calvin's writing to a
mutual friend, with no reason to be anything but honest to Bullinger.This is not the unguarded confidence of the
right-hand-man to an all-powerful dictator but genuine uncertainty in a
situation which could go either way due to the enmity between Geneva’s council
and Calvin.

The Servetus trial came in the midst of a long
battle between consistory and the majority Libertines on city council, led by
Ami Perrin.[17]A colleague of Calvin “assumed that
Servetus had come to the city to take advantage of the council's
dissatisfaction with Calvin.”[18]While Calvin had the considerable moral authority
of his pulpit and pen, he was not liked by all.“Tensions between church and state were reaching a critical point.”[19]A member of city council, Philibert Berthelier,
had been excommunicated by consistory but “refused to recognize that authority”
appealing to council to lift “the ecclesiastical ban.”Council “granted him permission to attend the
Lord's Supper” but Calvin warned them “he would resist.”On Sunday, September 3, 1553, “Calvin
declared from the pulpit” that he would not serve the elements to any whom the
church had barred from the table.Sensing a showdown, council had already secretly urged Berthelier not to
partake.Calvin was unaware of this, however,
and preaching from Acts 20, he quoted Paul's words of farewell to the
congregation, thinking this was possibly his last sermon in Geneva.

Along with Perrin, Berthelier was among
the council members appointed to try Servetus.Both may have been sympathetic toward Servetus; neither one liked
Calvin.[20]This conflict was playing out as Servetus sat
in a prison cell in Geneva, the written discussion with Calvin over heresy
charges taking place from September 2-5.[21]The council-consistory conflict was only
resolved much later.[22]This was not
a city or circumstance over which Calvin presided as an unchallenged
dictator.(Part 3)

[14]Ibid., 142; as Calvin reminded
Servetus in their post-sentencing meeting.

[15]Calvin,
Letters, 159; to Farel in a letter of August, 20, 1553.

[16]Ibid., 158; in a footnote.

[17]McGrath,
A Life, 106; Consistory was the body of pastors plus 12 lay elders in
Geneva which formed the local church authority which was very often at odds
with the then-ruling city council, the Perrinist party.

[18]Selderhuis,
John Calvin, 205-06; McGrath notes in A Life, that the colleague was Wolfgang Musculus, 119.

[19] Spijker, Brief Guide, 99; rest
of this paragraph is from Spijker's summary.